


Yves Klein Blue

by MatildaSwan



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Healing Angst, Hecate learns how to appreciate art, Oral Sex, lil bit of praise kink, she had a lot of heavy feelings before then, tiniest bit of spanking, with some wet messy sticky good fun, y'all know she has a lot of brain weasels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 15:52:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13391142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: Hecate Hardbroom does not understand the point of art. But after today, with Pippa's carefilled suggestion and loving support, she may yet come to see the value in painting something precious.





	Yves Klein Blue

**Author's Note:**

> So, an image of Pippa and Hecate covered sprawled out on a canvas covered in paint popped into my head and this came out. who even knows, aye.
> 
> CW: references to Hecate having a breakdown and spot of disassociation, but she's developing a support network.

Hecate really doesn’t understand the point of art.

She can appreciate beautiful things: sunrises, sunsets, lace and silk against soft scented skin; perfect spell cast with the absence of effort, or the illusion thereof; the shine of a woman’s eye caught side on in the moonlight, stammered pleas in the low wanting voice of a pretty lady; a single, solitary day without a Hubble-shaped catastrophe to clean up. Experiences like that, she knows how to appreciate. 

But art is something else entirely, something she can’t understand, can’t see what point there is to any of it: false scenes from fictional plays, imaginary worlds less fantastical than their own, painted portraits now they have camera. She doesn’t mind old portraits, family heirlooms: old and important and _real._ She can understand wanting something to remember another by.

She sees the purpose in documenting the real world to study it; her own collection of spell books includes meticulously accurate renderings of any rare and every common ingredient and otherwise useful plants and animals a witch could want to know. But anything less than a perfect replication of the real world leaves Hecate without a clue.

She has even less of a grasp on how it’s supposed to help the girls _learn._ Can’t see why it needs to be at Cackle’s at all, when the elder girls ought to be using the time to study for their W.H.C's, and the younger one remains woefully behind on simple spell casting, as far as she’s concerned.

She just doesn’t understand what the point of it is.

She says as much to Pippa—though, perhaps venting would be a more appropriate word, if she’s honest—during one of their mirror calls. They manage them as often as they can, time affording. They help to ease the tension between them, sometimes, to have set aside time to talk to one another.

Because things between them have been a little stilted, since they said goodbye a week earlier than expected, when Pentangle’s had been overrun with a colony of leopard-moths (what they were doing this far South, Hecate has no idea). Pippa had insisted this wasn’t Hecate’s problem to solve, that she should save her strength for Cackle’s. That she should leave Pippa to deal with this, that Hecate should return home.

Hecate knows Pippa wouldn’t never lie to her, has never lied to her. That when she told Hecate to head back to Cackle’s it was because she did want Hecate to save her energies for her catastrophes, soon to begin, of which neither of them had a doubt (quite how serious those calamities ended up, none would have guess, but they had both suspected something would go array). But she couldn’t help wondering if maybe it was fate, that they had to cut their time short so abruptly, a sign of things to come.

Couldn’t help wondering if this is when it all went wrong. Again.  

She’d been so worked up about the possibility she hadn’t been able to enjoy their last night together. Barely even managed a proper goodbye the next morning.

‘Thanks for having me,’ she mumbled against Pippa’s cheek, who snorted and shook her head, her chin brushing against Hecate’s shoulder for a moment before she drew away. Who kissed Hecate on the cheek and sent her on her way.

Hecate had spent the whole flight back positive that things had already come to the end.

She’d been in knots about it for days, pulled tight for weeks, hadn’t unraveled until Pippa had mirrored the first weekend after term when back, just to see how things were.

‘I’ve missed you, Hiccup,’ she admitted after the first tense pause of the conversation, staring at Hecate like she really did mean it. ‘I’m sorry your visit got cut short, and I’ve missed you so much. How are you, how did the term begin? Was it as bad as you’d expected, or better than you’d dared hope?’

The lightness in Pippa’s eye, the sparkle of her smile, had quickly faded when Hecate had looked away, turned her head, before finally mumbling, ‘So much worse.’

After that, Hecate hadn’t been able to help herself. It all came rushing out of her: Mildred Hubble and the castle, Agatha’s spell and how she’d failed the school, failed Ada, _again,_ Mildred and Ethel Hallow, Mildred and the potions supplies, Mildred and the Founding Stone, Mildred and that irritating talking tortoise. Always and again: Mildred Hubble _,_ that _wretched_ girl. 

She tried to apologise, to cover her tears, when she saw the stricken look on Pippa’s face. She’d looked at Hecate as if she were about to cry, all because Hecate hadn’t been able to help herself; she almost sobbed, before she shut down completely, so scared and frightened and tired of everything that she’d bothered Pippa, had burdened her, but she simply hadn’t been able to stop. Once she started she hadn’t been able to stop, until she simply just hadn’t been able.

She waved off the rest of the call, clipped tones and too much snap—had seen Pippa flinch, she’s sure, but she hadn’t been able to stop—and hung up, let Pippa go mid-sentence, and hidden herself away in her room for the rest of the day.

She hadn’t emerged until a quiet rumble against the door reminded her that she must have missed dinner; she opened the door expecting to find Ada there with a plate of food and gentle reminder that a witch must eat, that Hecate cannot keep forgetting the time. Only to find Pippa in her doorway: pretty, pink Pippa with fly-away hair and rosy red cheeks chapped from flying half a day just to make sure Hecate stopped crying.

Hecate had stammered, confused, almost fallen back into her room, as Pippa invited herself inside.

‘I know what you’re like, Hiccup,’ she’d said. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and you can’t run off on me like that, not when you’re that upset. You wouldn’t answer, and Ada couldn’t reach you either.’ Hecate frowned: she hadn’t realized anyone needed her, wondered why anyone would ever need her. ‘Neither of us knew what else to do,’ Pippa explained and Hecate stopped staring. Started blinking. ‘I care about you, and you can’t shut me out, not again, please,’ she’d pleaded, and Hecate had flung herself around Pippa’s still cloaked shoulders, wondering if anyone had ever run after her before.

She knows that hadn’t, that she never would have let anyone, maybe not even Pippa—not matter how much she wanted it—because she simply didn’t know _how_. Would never have known, if Pippa hadn’t just _done._

She doesn’t know what Pippa sees in her, not really, not truly—not beyond their childhood friendship and the fact that they fell in love at the same time, before Hecate broke both their hearts—but she is beginning to see just how much she means to Pippa. Just how much Pippa loves her.

It’s just as much as Hecate loves her, and maybe even more.

Because while Hecate loves Pippa with all of her heart and more than anything in the world, Pippa has always been so full of love for everything. And out of everything in the world, Pippa chose to love her best. All that love, all that care. Just for her.

They took the rest of the week, squirreled themselves away to make sure things were alright. The castle had been in whispers about Miss Pentangle visiting suddenly—Felicity kept prattling on about it for three weeks after Pippa left—and Hecate’s ears had burnt constantly. She hated it, how they talked about her, to be the stuff of gossip; but the knowledge that Pippa really would do almost anything in the world for her had settled in her heart, stopped her worrying and let her breathe again. 

It had tied her up in knots, too; unsure how to deal with so much attention, that much love. To be worth that much to another human. She hasn’t quite adjusted, not yet, and things have been slightly tense, between them, while Pippa gives her the space she needs to settle into herself again. She finds writing helps, lets her slow down and process things, makes it easier to say them out loud later, if she needs to. But things have been a bit tense, lately 

And she doesn’t understand the point of art. As she said. To Pippa. When she mirrored.

‘I don’t see why it’s necessary.’

‘It’s not, that’s the point,’ Pippa replies cheerfully through mirror. ‘I know you don’t like frivolous things, Hecate, but art doesn’t have to have a point. It doesn’t even need to be about the final work. It’s the effort that goes into to, the benefit you get out of it. It’ll be good for the girls, help another part of their minds to focus, to produce. It works wonders for my students, both class and therapy sessions.’

Hecate pauses, frowns. _Perhaps._

‘I can show you if you like? When you next visit?’

Pippa’s hope for ‘soon?’ hangs in the air; Hecate's promise of ‘as possible’ their parting note.

It’s how she ended up here, some weeks later, in between term time and the castle empty save for them, in the lower level art classrooms. Wearing a pair of Pippa’s overalls—once pink, now purple (she tried to make them black and all she’d managed was byzantium. _Wretched synthetic fabrics,_ she sniffed at the thought, slipping them into them while Pippa smiled)—and her hair wrapped up tight in one of Pippa’s scarves.

She’s glad she found something muted, matching enough in a deep purple, that doesn’t sparkle; she knows what Pippa’s like, how brightly she shines, how colourful she is in everyday life. It’s nothing she’d ever chose for herself, but it suits her friend— _her lover_ , she reminds herself, a dozen times a day—just right. But again, nothing she’d ever chose for herself.

She’s lucky it was chilly when she left this morning, so she slipped into a long-sleeved shirt under her lighter blouse.

‘You didn’t tell me there was a dress code.’

‘There isn’t,’ Pippa replies happily. The corner of Hecate’s lips twitch. ‘But your outfit was just too beautiful, I didn’t want it to get dirty.’ Hecate hides a smile, a hand reaching for her hair. ‘And I know how attached you are to your hair.’

Hecate teases right back, replying wryly, ‘Isn’t everyone.’ She bends slightly to sniff at a pot of freshly opened paint. She cringes. This is not going to go well. ‘So, what do I do?’

‘Anything you like.’

A flash of what Hecate wants most—what she _always_ wants, has done since Pippa reappeared in her life and sought her out and let Hecate draw her into her room before their shaking hands pulled the other close—rushes through her mind; Pippa’s suggestion of _anything_ twisting into a promise as Hecate tries to stop the flow of things she’d much rather be doing that playing with paint brushes and palettes when she has Pippa Pentangle in close proximity.

It’s almost unseemly, to be this easily distracted, for someone to distract her with barely a word. She should hate how easily Pippa plays her, as if this is a game Pippa can win with without trying, but it’s not Pippa’s fault, never her intention, not even her doing; it’s just the two of them, how they are together, now they’re allowed to be, finally. After all this time.

She loves how Pippa can make her feel.

She can’t help the rush of heat that runs right through her and holds it in her heart; hides it from Pippa, because that was most certainly _not_ what Pippa meant. Confirmed when she urges, ‘Come on, grab a colour and have a go.’

Hecate watches through lowered lashes as Pippa sinks to her knees, making herself comfortable at one end of huge canvas taking up at least a third of the floor.

(‘It’ll make clean-up easier,’ she’d said as she placed it over the huge puce sheet sitting underneath, when Hecate has asked what she was doing.

She sniffed. ‘That’s what magic is for.’

Pippa tutted, sucked her teeth. ‘Not with paint, I’m afraid. The pigment sticks.’ She beckons a few pots of paints to rest around the edge of the canvas, sitting safely on the underlying sheet. ‘It comes off skin easily enough, when removed without magic, but it takes _eons_ for it to come out of the stonework.’

‘I see,’ Hecate said, reminding herself to ensure Miss Mound leave the castle in pristine condition when she leaves, ideally sooner rather than later. She looked down at her outrageous get an, provided Pippa hadn’t hidden a camera anywhere so no one would ever know, thought it was probably worth it, to be overly cautious.)

She keeps watching as Pippa starts swiping at the board with big brush strokes, dabbing and dotting and spotting paint on canvas, until the impression of the mountain top visible through the sou-eastern window begins to emerge. She knew Pippa would be good at this—she’s good at everything she does, always has been, it’s why they were friends in the first place—but she’s still impressed at how quickly she manages to make the paint look like it is actually something, even if the colours are all wrong.

 _It looks like sunset,_ she realises after a moment, _of course it is._ Dusk has always been Pippa’s favourite time of day: last traces of sun clinging to the earth, while the stars begin to shine and she can see the best of both skies before the darkness truly sets in.

She always used to hate the dark—still does, from time to time, she’s not afraid to admit—when she feels small and insignificant and forgettable. But it’s easier now, with Hecate back in her life; knowing that she was never forgotten, not even for a moment. Or so Hecate has been told, in the morning glow of sunrise, with Pippa’s hair against her cheek and and their fingers intertwined, a mirror to their limbs. She knows just what she means to Pippa, because Pippa had been brave enough to tell her.

Courage was never Hecate’s strong suit, not for things that truly matter, not like that. But she’s trying, now, for Pippa. To be better. Because she can and because she should and because she wants to. For Pippa, and for herself. 

She’s doing her best, right now, to make Pippa happy. To make herself proud. Because Pippa asked her to try something new, to share something together, just the once, to see if she likes it and because Pippa thought it might help. So, Hecate can do this, messy and pointless and a ridiculous waste of time, because it makes Pippa happy, just to see her try.

She sits primly at the end of the canvas, picks up a sensibly sized brush, loads it up with the nearest paint—sapphire, she thinks—and does her best.

Ten minutes later, she has a sky. Well, a sunless, cloudless, limitless sky with no sight of where the horizon meets the earth. It’s a strip of blue: dark and swirling and formless. All she’s managed is a strip of blue. 

She sighs heavily, irritated at her own lack of imagination. She’s seen more innovative graffiti on Mildred Hubble’s desk. In more colours, too, she’s sure.

Pippa looks over her shoulder. Senses her disappointment. Shuffles closer. ‘Don’t be like that, Hiccup. It’s a wonderful start. You just have to let yourself feel it, the want to create something. You have to let go.’

She can’t even begin to imagine what that means, let alone what it actually entails. She feels ridiculous, out of place, without a purpose; she can’t help herself, but she glares at Pippa, who simply shuffles even closer, already well acquainted with all the things Hecate cannot bring herself to say.

‘Here, look, if you just—' she starts, her fringe falling forward, a few tendrils coming out of her braid, her short sleeves riding up as she crawls on her knees and hands and paint stained fingertips, to stop beside Hecate’s thigh.

She dabs her brush in the white nearby. Leans over to add a shining, bright moon to Hecate’s sky. Another dab and a flick of her brush over her fingertip add a smattering of white; another, lighter flick turns the whole stripe to night time.

Hecate looks down in awe, at how quickly Pippa made it look like it was exactly what it was always meant to be. Of course she was painting the night’s sky, forever her favourite—quiet and still, so vast and ever expanding. It always made her feel safe, when she was young, to know that a universe so big still managed to find space for her to come into existence. It mightn’t have been a life she wanted, but it was one she had, and it was all her own; no one else would ever have it, no matter what else happened.

And she’d first fallen in love under a starlit sky. First whispered it, like a pray: a promise, that she loves her still, always will, with moonbeams gleaming over Pippa’s golden curls, make them shine silver but not quite as bright as her smile.  

Of course, the night is the first thing she would paint, would try to replicate; whatever else could there ever have been but this? She reaches out, to trace a fingernail along the edges of the moon. Whatever else could there be.

Pippa reaches out, to dip into a pot of red, to add a touch of colour for the giants Hecate loved seeing most; her brush gets the back of Hecate’s hand on the way, a streak of white across skin almost as pale.

Hecate’s eyes go wide, staring down at the patch of sticky, clinging to her skin.

‘Oh, Hiccup, I’m so sorry.’ They both know it was an accident, but Pippa sounds almost distraught. ‘It’ll wash off, I promise. You just can’t use magic, it never works right.' 

Hecate keeps staring at her hand, then Pippa, to the painting below her. Looks back to the smudges on Pippa’s body, her clothes, the patch of stained neck exposed by her wayward collar.

The paint on her hand doesn’t seem nearly so terrible now; the look still on Pippa’s face most definitely is. She hates it when Pippa is sad, whenever she can see even the faintest trace of upset on that beautiful face, when Pippa isn’t the brightest she can be. 

Hecate knows exactly what she can do to cheer Pippa up. Smiles, sweet and sly, and reaches out to dab a finger into the pot beside Pippa’s thumb.

Pippa stops worrying; start frowning, confused, as Hecate reaches back to dab at the back of Pippa’s hand. Her eyes go wide, wider even, when Hecate rubs her finger along the skin of her hand, over her wrist, to slip her hand into Pippa and hold on tight.

She wonders if Pippa remembers the last time she did something like this, wrapped something around Pippa’s wrist so they both might match. The wet shine of her eyes her makes her think maybe she does; all the more certain when Pippa ducks her head, smiling bright with a tiny sniff.  

Pippa puts her palm on the floor, to steady herself, to hold on just as tight; her hand ends up in a patch of wet paint. Before she can yelp, Hecate—impatient as ever—pulls her forward for a kiss.

She falls willingly, loses her balance, braces herself against Hecate’s chest; purple paint sticks to the denim over Hecate’s breast as Pippa licks at the seam of her mouth. Hecate pulls away, leans back, her hand ends up a sticky mess; she almost squawks, and holds up her hand to see it covered in blue.

Pippa laughs, light and happy, as Hecate stares down at her oozing hand. Hecate scowls, her hand shoots out, she cups Pippa’s breast firmly.

Pippa grins, as Hecate lingers. Inhales as she shifts around. Bites her lip as she thumbs at a nipple through her shirt. Her eyes flutter shuts with a happy sigh; Hecate pinches and she hisses. Her eyes snap open, dark and wanting, and she lunges.

Hecate’s muffled surprise turns to throaty moans as she ends up on her back, her hand moving to Pippa’s collarbone, to her cheek, pulling her close to kiss her harder. It’s not till they break apart, breathless, that she remembers her skin is still stained sapphire, and now Pippa’s face too.

Pippa realises the moment Hecate’s panicked eyes flick from her lips to her cheek; stills Hecate’s apology with another kiss before she speak.

‘I told you to let go, didn’t I?’ she whispers when she pulls back again. ‘You’re safe here, I’ve got you.’

Hecate shivers as Pippa’s mouth moves to her jaw, down her neck, to nip at her collarbone. Hecate’s eyes flutter shut and she flails slightly, smearing another colour over her elbow; can’t bring herself to care with Pippa’s mouth on her chest, the clasp of her overalls unbuckling, Pippa’s hand slipping under her shirt to stoke over hot, soft skin.

She feels wild, wanton; wanting the way she does whenever she’s near Pippa, the way she wants Pippa with everything she is, from only the slightest bit of encouragement. It’s little wonder she ran when they were young, there’s no way she could have survived learning to love Pippa when she barely knew herself.

But she is ever so keen to keep learning now she can.

She rolls them over, onto their sides, slips a thigh between Pippa’s and presses up. Pippa grunts, ruts, her mouth in the crook of Hecate’s neck. Pippa shifts—a new position, Hecate thinks—until a paint soggy hand ends up on her arse, a slight thud that make her throb. She almost begs, _again, harder, please_ , but Pippa snorts, then giggles and does not stop.

She knows, without looking, that her arse is most certainly hand-printed pink; knows that she’ll beg Pippa to spank her ruby red and rose later, tonight, and welcome the sting of Pippa’s hand on her backside till she’s near tearful and euphoric at hearing: ‘Good girl, such a good girl. So sweet, and all mine. My Hecate.' 

But she can’t ask—not now, nor here—because Pippa is still grinding down on her thigh, twitching slightly, shaking in her arms, and she wants Pippa to come. Whispers as much in her ear, a breathy, unsure promise that, ‘Soon, my love, I promise,’ as she twists Pippa onto her back and strips her near bare—her top over her head, her trousers over a shoulder, her knickers around an ankle—and presses her down onto her back.

Pippa shivers—from the paint over her spine, Hecate suspects—and she wants to touch her so badly it hurts, to feel her writhe and hear her whimper and make her come, clenching, on her knuckles. But her hands are covered in paint while her mouth is now wiped free of colour. So she nips at blank patches of tang-sweet skin as she slides down Pippa’s body.

She barely registers the wet against her hand, and settles between Pippa’s legs—crouching pulls her overalls down, slides them to hang low off her hips; she can feel the air on her back, long sleeves shirt ridden half way up—flattens her hand against Pippa’s stomach, smearing green over flushed pink skin.

She licks her once, long and languid, before diving in face deep.

Her other hand cups Pippa’s arse, stained blue fingertips biting into soft flesh, as Pippa rolls her hips and ruts up against Hecate’s eager mouth. She smirks, looking up the length of Pippa’s body, at the mess she’s making; sees Pippa’s hands, not wound in Hecate’s hair as they would normally be, but balled up by her sides. Curled away and kept to herself, because they’re covered in paint, stained and sticky; curled away from the scarf still wrapped safely around Hecate’s head, keeping her hair neat and tidy and clean.

Her heart lurches, with the realisation that even now, Pippa is trying to take care of her, to care of the same things Hecate cares about, when Hecate has her face pressed into heat so sweet, licking her delicious and filthy and ever-nearer coming, because even now—especially now—Pippa loves her, more than she can say, maybe even more than she can ever show.

She feels dizzy, suddenly desperate to make Pippa come, to taste Pippa coming for her; wants it more than anything in the world. Her razor-sharp tongue licks quick and sure to fill Hecate’s ears for breathy sighs and warm moans that make her skin tingle and tense and shiver, till Pippa’s hips rise off the floor, bucking up into Hecate’s open mouth, while that wicked tongue sees her through it.  

She sinks back onto the floor, gasping; Hecate slides back up her body, smirking.

‘Well, that was a delightful surprise,’ Pippa huffs out with a laugh, joyous and happy, and pulls Hecate close for a kiss; moans deep in her throat while she licks herself off Hecate’s tongue.

Hecate sinks into Pippa, sags against her. Pays no mind to the tacky fingers against her cheeks, or the rest of their pigment stained bodies pressed tight and sticky, and thinks she may yet come to see the point of art.

Could, indeed, see the purpose of art; given enough time, and enough canvases, upon which to make Pippa come.


End file.
